More Warhammer 40K reading
Last Chancers - by Gav Thorpe.
This is a compendium of the three Last Chancers novels, with a couple of short stories thrown in to make you buy the collected version if you already have the three individual novels. The series follows Lt. Kage, a member of the 13th Penal Regiment, commanded by Colonel Shaeffer. They are known as the "Last Chancers" because Shaeffer offers them the opportunity to clear their names through death in the Emperor's service.
The novels themselves are nothing much to write about - pretty standard game fiction on the whole. The second and third novels were written to tie in with the release of Games Workshop products, and it shows - painfully at times. The main character, Lt. Kage, is an unlikeable sort - but more to the point he isn't particularly interesting either in thought or deed. Mostly he wades through an unending series of battles page after page, always managing to come out on top. At some point he inevitably decides "To hell with this!" and attempts escape, only to come back and win the day (if not his freedom) in the end. With the exception of Col. Shaeffer, who appears sparingly throughout the series, lesser characters are generally flat, uninteresting, and exist in numbers and talent just sufficient to provide a suitable body count by the end of any particular book and ensure that Kage is pretty much the only survivor of whatever mission he is sent on. I suppose it is self-evident, given that this is the grim darkness of the 41st millennium, but female characters are in very short supply (generally 1 per novel) and exist mainly to die poignantly and/or grotesquely at some point.
The CONCEPT of the Last Chancers is a good one, however, and very evocative of the Warhammer 40K universe. The idea of a Penal unit is essential 40K, and the concept of a cruel and harsh Imperial officer like Shaeffer - who cares nothing for the physical well-being of the scum under him, but is interested in the eventual redemption of their souls - has great application for both PCs and NPCs in RPGs set in the 40K universe. Shaeffer is also just the sort of guy to fit into any sort of 40K scenario as a Guard commander - at one point he needs 10 troops for a commando mission, so he puts together 4,000 troops, along with all their associated transport vehicles, support, etc. and spends three years sending them to horrible combat zones so he can winnow out the 10 final survivors for his suicide mission.
Now THAT'S Warhammer 40K!
However, everything that you need to know in order to incorporate the ideas of Last Chancers into your Warhammer based RPG are in the concept of the book, not the writing itself. Wading through Thorpe's "strong, uncluttered narrative" isn't really necessary.
Horus Rising: Book 1 of The Horus Heresy, by Dan Abnett.
In the grim enlightenment of the 31st millenium, there is STILL a hell of a lot of war.
This is the first novel of a series to be written about one of the seminal events of the Warhammer 40K universe - the Horus Heresy. Set 10,000 years prior to the miniatures game (and associated franchise) it will detail all the events that led up to the betrayal of Warmaster Horus against the Emperor, and the subsequent wacky fun.
Let me start off by saying that there is very little in this novel that is going to be much use in a Warhammer 40K based campaign Given that it is set long before the events of 40K, at best you might be able to get an occasional "historical" reference out of it.
That said, however, this is a novel well worth reading, marred only by the fact that not all novels of the series are going to be written by Abnett, leading to the potential unpleasantness of author bait-and-switch so familiar to readers of comic books.
Abnett continues to impress me as the best of the Black Library's stable of writers. He manages to make the Warhammer 40K setting evocative and interesting, turning many of the concepts central to that setting on their heads. The Imperium of Man is a militantly secular state, having just fought a 5,000 year war of unification to rid mankind of religion. The Emperor is actually up and walking around (though we don't get to see him in the book), rather than being a dessicated husk on the Golden Throne. Space Marines are as badass as they are supposed to be, not as badass as they can be without wrecking game balance (much). There is considerable political intrigue to go with the battle scenes, and many of the battle scenes are quite good. The chapters of the pacification of the world Murder are fast paced and exciting, and the megarachnids which the Imperium is fighting are fearsome and deadly opponents - the moreso because they don't have a Codex (warning to GW - the day you come out with Codex: Megarachnid is the day I fly to England and murder you all). The work has something of the sweeping feel of Dune to it - a vast universe, familiar enough to the reader that we can navigate without losing our way, but different enough to be intriguing and require a bit of thought as well. And, shockingly, there are some female characters that don't totally suck.
If you enjoy reading Warhammer 40K fiction (and are not daunted by the fact that subsequent novels will be written by lesser talents than Abnett) check this one out.
On related topic, I discovered while wandering the Black Library website that Henry Zou has not one, but two more Bastion War novels coming out. If you are an aspiring writer, contact Zou immediately and find out who his agent is - if he can get a three book deal, so can you.
Next up: Let the Galaxy Burn and False Gods